Marvin Fong, The Plain DealerHorses make their way down the home stretch during the Ohio Derby last June.

NORTH RANDALL, Ohio — The developers of Cleveland’s casino, who also own the Thistledown horseracing track in North Randall, are considering moving the track to the Akron area, a spokesman for Gov. John Kasich says.

Rock Ohio Caesars controls the thoroughbred racetrack and owns the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland, scheduled to open May 14 on Public Square. The company plans to install video slot machines at its horse track, and moving it out of Cuyahoga County would limit competition with the casino.

Rock Ohio spokeswoman Jennifer Kulczycki declined to comment. The company has long said that moving the track is an option but has never speculated publicly on prospective sites.

The possibility of going to the Akron area surfaced in the wording of an agreement that Kasich's office has signed with Ohio's other gambling operator, Penn National Gaming Inc.

That agreement, announced last week, would let Penn National move a Columbus horse track to the Youngstown area and a Toledo track to Dayton. Both would be "racinos" with wagering on races and video slots. Penn waived a previous agreement's restrictions on allowing gambling competition within a 50-mile radius.

The new agreement specifically mentions "potential relocation" of Thistledown to the Akron area, where it could infringe on the 50-mile zone. Kasich's spokesman, Rob Nichols, acknowledged that Kasich's staff and Rock Ohio Caesars are discussing the move.

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"It's something we have continued to work on," Nichols said. "We don't have an announcement yet."

Penn National is not worried that a thoroughbred track the company plans to build in Austintown Township, near Youngstown, would lose business to a thoroughbred track in the Akron area, spokesman Bob Tenenbaum said.

"You're looking at a very large market area, basically Northeast Ohio," he said. "That's a sufficiently large area. Those two tracks could co-exist."

State officials and the gaming companies have sought to strategically position gambling operations. Experts have estimated that about 90 percent of Ohio's casino patrons will live within 50 miles and that racinos will primarily draw residents who live within 25 miles. In addition to vying with the Cleveland casino, Thistledown could face competition at its present site from video slots at Northfield Park, a nearby harness-racing track.

Thistledown was founded in North Randall in 1925 and spans 128 acres, a fourth of the village. Neither Mayor David Smith nor Village Council President Woodrow Marcus could be reached for comment.

Leaders of Ohio's horseracing industry -- built around three thoroughbred tracks and four harness tracks -- say it has lost ground to racinos in border states and is struggling. The racinos attract top thoroughbreds by offering larger purses, said Dave Basler, executive director of the Ohio Horseman's Benevolent and Protective Association, a thoroughbred group.

"The expansion of gaming at racetracks in other states, particularly surrounding states, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, has definitely hurt the product at Thistledown and caused financial hardship for our group," Basler said. "A lot of the better stock has had to leave the state for those locations in order to survive."

Most of Ohio's tracks have hesitated to push ahead with racino development until a lawsuit by the Ohio Roundtable, an anti-gambling group, is decided in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.

The group filed suit in October, charging that state officials circumvented the Ohio Constitution by expanding gambling at racetracks. Voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2009 that allowed four casinos to be built in the state. Those four are under construction in Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus and Cincinnati.

Attorney General Mike DeWine is seeking to have the suit dismissed. The court will hear arguments on April 5.

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